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Living Righteous 1

 

Adapted from “Just What the Bible is all about” © 1979

What Happens to Body and Soul at Death?

Faith in a future life is what leads many to perform noble deeds and to attempt to live good lives.  Mankind has a built-in sense of moral obligation that causes him to look to the future.  Many times the righteous suffer in this life while the wicked seem to prosper.  Our sense of reason and justice tells us surely there will be future justice yet due.  Many also feel they are capable of attainments far beyond what their time and opportunities ever enable them to realize in the limits of this life.   Longfellow has said:      

                                    

“Life is real, life is earnest

And the grave is not it’s goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returneth

Was not spoken of the soul.”

 

This belief of life after death is found in all races and is not just the result of traditional teaching.  Surely the reason that God has implanted this universal intuition of immortality in man is because He has made provision for it.  Besides our intuition, the Bible also teaches us of life after death.  Man is a two-fold being consisting of mortal flesh (his outward body) and immortal spirit the inward man) his soul.  “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day,” (II Cor. 4:16).   Spiritual death is a separation, a separation from God.   Therefore, a person can be physically alive and at the same time be spiritually dead, (Eph. 2:1-Col. 2:13) dead in trespasses and sin; hence separa­ted from God.  Physical death is a separation also; a sepa­ration of the soul from the body.  “And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin, (Gen. 35:18).  “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also,” (James 2:26).  So when the spirit leaves the body, the body dies.

 

Physical life is … Soul united with body.

Physical death is … Soul separated from body.

Spiritual life is … Soul united with God.

Spiritual death is … Soul separated from God.

The second death … final separation from God.

 

The failure to distinguish between physical life and spiritual life is why some erroneously hold to what is termed “conditional immorality”. This incorrect doctrine teaches that only the saved have immortality.  This decep­tion leaves the unsaved with no everlasting punishment, just the forfeiture of everlasting life.  They base this false theory on scriptures like John 3:36.  “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that be­lieveth not shall not see life.”  The “life” referred to by these scriptures means spiritual life or union with God, which of course only believers have.   Scriptures like II Thessalonians 1:7-9 clearly show that the wicked, “...shall be punished with everlasting destruction.”  There is a difference between eternal life and immortality.  Immortality is ceaseless existence, something every soul has, saved or unsaved.  Eternal life is the condition of the soul of the saved in that it is united with the eternal Christ, therefore has eternal life.   We would point out that if this person sins, his soul is separated from Christ, (he spiritually dies) hence, at that point he no longer has eternal life, but is dead again in trespass and sin.  Going on now with life after death, there are numerous scriptures proving the soul lives on (exists) after the body dies.   In teaching the resurrection of the dead, Jesus taught in Matthew 22:32, that the souls of the ancient prophets were still living, even though their bodies were long since decayed.  Also in Luke 23:43, Jesus promised the dy­ing thief on the cross that, “...today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”  The body of the thief, like that of Jesus, died on the cross and was buried.  It was their spirits which went to paradise.  They were to go to paradise, not thousands of years later as “soul sleepers” and the “annihilationist” affirms, but the very day on which they died... “today”.   Paul was “willing to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord,” (II Cor. 5:6-8).  Again Paul says, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain...for I am in a strait betwixed two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you,” (Philippians 1:21,23).  These texts show that the soul lives on in a conscious existence after the body dies and refutes the false theories of “soul sleeping” and “annihilation”.  Now just what happens to the body and soul at the time of physical death?

FIRST: WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BODY AT DEATH?

Our bodies are mortal as we all know, therefore at death the body decomposes.  That which was created from the dust of the earth, the body, the flesh, what Paul termed the “outward man” will go back to dust again. However the Bible teaches that this body that dies will be resurrected.  Only the body sleeps in the dust of the ground (Eccl. 11.7 / Matt. 27:52-53) and that which sleeps “...in the dust of the earth shall awake.”  Daniel 12:2 says, “And many [the many] of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”.  Then Philippians 3:20-21 says, “we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:  Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body…”   It is not our soul, but our body that will come forth and be changed in the final resurrection of the dead.  So also is the resurrection of the dead.  It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.  There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body,” (I Cor. 15:42-44).   Our bodies (only) are mortal and “...this mortal must put on immortality.”   “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, (I Cor. 15:53).  Christ is the begotten of the dead...”  (Rev. 1:5).  The first born from the dead…” (Col. 1:18); “...the first-fruits of them that slept,” (I Cor. 15:20) “...the first that should rise from the dead…” (Acts 26:23.)   There is more on the resurrection in the booklet entitled “Christ’s Second Coming and Last Things”.

 

SECOND: WHAT HAPPENS TO THE

SOUL AT TIME OF DEATH

We have already shown the soul lives on after the death of the body and that the body will be resurrected.   These facts would certainly imply that there is an intermediate state or place for the soul between death and the resurrection.     

 

THE INTERMEDIATE STATE

This state surely would not be a so-called purgatory, (a place some claim to suffer for sin).  The false teaching of a purgatory denies that the atonement of Christ is sufficient to save from all sin, and also denies that salvation is only by the grace of God through Christ.  The intermediate state also would not be a state or place of probation.  “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”   The things done in our body would be while we were yet alive.  Another incorrect teaching is that man receives his final reward at the time of death, but this too, is not the teaching of the scriptures.   If a man received his final reward at death there would be no need for a resurrection and a day of judgment.   II Timothy 4:1 teaches us Christ “… shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing…  In II Thessalonians 1:7-10, we read that, “…when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on those that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power; When He shall come to be glorified in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe…”  Therefore, the soul goes to an intermediate place at the time of death to wait the final judgment when he receives his final reward, be it good or bad.

 

HADES…THE INTERMEDIATE PLACE

The intermediate place or state is called Hades, the unseen world, the place of departed spirits.  Granted, the term “Hades” (translated as “hell” several times in the New Testament) can have other meanings as well.  When the Hebrews intermingled with the Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans, they naturally came into their own use of terms and adopted them.  Thus the term “paradise,” “Abraham’s bosom,” “Tartarus,” etc., came to be commonly used among the Jews, when referring to the state of the blessed or the wicked after death.  These terms were of course introduced into the teachings of the scriptures.  The Apostle Paul speaks of “paradise” as a heavenly realm (II Cor. 12:2-4) as does Jesus when talking to the thief on the cross.  Paradise, therefore, refers to the place in the unseen world (Hades) the righteous soul goes at death.  Tartarus, the lowest Hades, is the dwelling place for departed wicked souls.  II Peter 2:4 says, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.”  “Hell,” in this scripture is from the Greek word “Tartarus”.  The intermediate place for the righteous and the wicked is also seen in the account of Lazarus and the rich man, (Luke 16:19-31).  Lazarus died and was carried into Abraham’s bosom.  The rich man also died and was buried.  “…and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments…”  This lesson teaches there was a great gulf fixed between the two places.  We know this took place before the resurrection because the five brothers of the rich man were still living on earth, and the rich man desired they would repent so they would not end up in the same place.

Bill Roberts

Gospel Truth and Publications, P.O. Box 142, Jackson Center, OH 45334

See diagram chart below.


  Click here to read: Christ's Second Coming and Last Things

This site was last updated 12/28/07

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